


The Lantern and the Lightning Bolt

by Morgenleoht



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Fantastic Racism, Genocide, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Medical Experimentation, Multi, Slavery, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgenleoht/pseuds/Morgenleoht
Summary: "The lantern and the lightning bolt will light the way in the darkness…"The Institute has had its way for too long. From a chance encounter between a runaway synth and the last of the Minutemen grows the resistance. The soldier and the spy make an unexpected alliance. A warlord must consider the meaning of humanity and a reporter must cry the truth out in the wilderness.The spark is there. It just needs to be fanned into conflagration.





	The Lantern and the Lightning Bolt

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, slavery, fantastic racism, torture, abuse, child soldiers, medical experimentation, and mentions of rape/non-con, genocide and kidnapping. This story is possible thanks to the Alternate Start mod of Fallout 4, to which I have returned after almost a year. I’m using a lot of greening mods this playthrough (as inspired by Chernobyl and Fukushima), so the story will reflect this.

 

S1-01 was picking through a house at the edge of an abandoned settlement when the crack of gunshots reached her ears. The dog that followed her from the Red Rocket flattened his ears and growled, a sign she’d learned to recognise as aggressive, and the escaped synth sighed. Too many Wastelanders raided each other instead of pooling their resources to survive. She occasionally wondered if the inculcators at Robotics had been right about the surface being too hostile for civilised life.

            She tucked the withered orange gourds and bubbly purple fruit she’d found in her pack and rose to her feet, flicking the security baton M7-97 taught her how to use out with one smooth motion. The Wastelanders didn’t know she was here; the ones they called Raiders tended to shout out the various things they’d do to her once they had their hands on her. Pity for them even a former Hydroponics synth, cycled out of the Nursery because she got too attached to the children under her care, was faster and stronger than the scrawny specimens of humanity around here.

            She and the dog crept around the edges of the town, hung with ancient red, blue and white banners, until they could see the conflict. An umber-skinned man who looked a bit like X6-88 was cranking up an outlandish laser gun up on a balcony as various Raiders taunted him. “Come on down, little Minuteman!” crowed a big ugly Raider. “We’ll have ourselves some fun!”

            “Go to hell, Gristle!” the Minuteman yelled back. A lot of Wastelanders told each other to go to this hell place. It sounded quite unpleasant.

            Gristle gave an ugly laugh. “After you, Garvey, after you.”

            S1 leapt up to the wall, fingers digging into crumbling brick, and climbed until she could grab a Raider on the roof by the boot. One tug and the woman fell to the cracked road beneath, her head turning to red ruin. Gristle turned around in shock but S1 had already vaulted over the railing and ducked behind a crate. The Minuteman Garvey took the opportunity to fire his strange weapon, turning the other Raider sniper into a pile of ash.

            The security baton in her hand was light and sturdy, breaking bone and pulping flesh, and soon enough Gristle was running for the hills. S1 looked up at the balcony, where Garvey wiped his forehead with a grimy hand. “Thanks for the assistance,” the Minuteman said. “But there’s more inside and he’ll come back with friends. Can you keep on helping?”

            “Of course!” S1 was trained to do as humans ordered her to do but something about Garvey told her he didn’t care she was a synth, only that she could help.

            “Then grab that laser musket and get up here.” Garvey vanished back into the building.

            Inside, there were more Raiders that died, a couple managing to graze her with bullets. Her Institute uniform was more beige than white these days, splattered with blood and worse. The inculcators would have sent her for wiping and reassignment if they saw her in this state. She did grab a fusion core from the basement. It might be useful. The Institute always made it a priority to salvage them.

            “Come on, in here,” Garvey said as he flung open the door. Once it was shut behind her, S1 saw two other men – one wearing overalls who was vaguely familiar and the other a scrawny dark-haired man – and two women – one complaining with an edge of fear under her sharp tones and the other looking at her with faded blue eyes. They all looked ragged and exhausted.

            “I don’t know who you are,” Garvey said, eyes flicking down to her uniform, “But your timing is impeccable. Lieutenant Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.”

            “S1-01, Institute Hydroponics,” she replied automatically. “Uh, I was. I ran away.”

            “Good for you!” Preston said with a broad grin. There was no fear in his warm brown-gold eyes. “Synth?”

            “Ye-es,” she admitted. He’d seen her climb a wall one-handed, so why bother lying?

            “Maybe when this is over, you can tell us what it’s like down there.” Preston sighed and looked out the window. “We’re from Quincy down south and these bastards have been chasing us since just after Lexington. Gunners, feral ghouls, Raiders… Last month there were twenty of us. Yesterday, eight. I’m the last Minuteman and I need to get these folks to safety.”

            “What are ghouls?” S1 asked.

            “Most are just people messed up by rads,” explained the overall-wearing man at the computer. “They’re ugly as sin but live a long time. Some of them are even pre-War. But the rads can rot their brains and turn them feral.”

            “That’s sad,” S1 said.

            “Yeah,” Garvey agreed. “Look, we have a plan to get out, and that fusion core’s going to help us. Sturges?”

            “There’s a crashed vertibird on the roof,” Sturges continued in his strange drawl. “It’s got a mini-gun and whoever was on it left a suit of power armour. Put the FC in that baby, rip the mini-gun from the vertibird, and spray’n’pray the bastards.”

            “You’re relying on a synth to save us!” shrieked the dark-haired woman. “What if she’s here to kill us all?”

            “If the Institute wanted you dead, they’d send a Courser!” S1 shot back.

            “Hydroponics means she was the Institute’s equivalent of a farmer, Marcy,” Preston explained gently.

            More might have been said but the dog, forgotten in the battles of the past hour or so, nosed his way into the room. S1 decided not to ask where the bone in his mouth came from. “There you are!” she exclaimed, patting the creature’s head briefly. “I’m sorry I left you behind.”

            “Dogmeat’s found us a new friend,” the old woman observed with a smile.

            “Dogmeat?” S1 asked in confusion.

            “The mutt. He finds those who need his help. Those who will change things for better or worse.” Her smile was a bit vague. “Be careful out there. Something’s comin’, angry and drawn by the blood.”

            S1 looked pleadingly at her, the same look that worked on M7 back in the day. “What’s coming? Please, I need to know.”

            “Big. Angry. Clawed death.” The old woman slumped. “Get out there and get things done, girl.”

            That didn’t sound good. S1 looked at Preston and Sturges. The dark-haired couple looked too tired to be of use. “Take this,” she said, thrusting the laser weapon at Sturges. “If you’re shooting at the Raiders, I’ll be able to get to the armour.”

            Sturges nodded. “On it.”

            S1 headed for the other door, hoping this would work.

…

“You’ve got a knack for tactics,” Preston told S1 as he skinned the deathclaw, blown in two by the exploding car. The other Quincy people looted the Raiders pragmatically. It was no worse than Gristle would have done to them.

            “I don’t like fighting,” the synth admitted unhappily. “I like talking to people.”

            Preston smiled sadly. “I know how you feel,” he agreed. “But Raiders are like feral ghouls. You can’t negotiate with them, only kill them.”

            Sturges was using the power armour because S1 couldn’t get out of it soon enough. Once the adrenaline from the fight wore off, she vomited while crying. That softened Jun Long to her, even if Marcy kept on glaring. Preston reminded himself she was channelling her grief through anger.

            “So Sanctuary’s a bit north of here, according to Mama Murphy,” Preston explained. “Big pre-war settlement with no one in it.”

            S1’s eyes lit up. “You mean the one with the Codsworth robot?”

            “Yeah, I guess so.” Preston rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, if you wanna join us, you’re welcome to. Synths… aren’t exactly popular in the Commonwealth because of shit the Institute’s pulled.”

            “Sending Gen-2s to acquire materials, replacing people with Gen-3s and having the Coursers bring in test subjects?” S1 asked.

            “Yeah,” Preston said grimly. “So you’re…?”

            “Gen-3. Gen-1s are the skeleton ones and the plastic-skinned ones are Gen-2s,” she replied with a sigh. “Coursers are Gen-3s, maybe. Z3 thought they might be the Gen-4s that will replace us.”

            “Christ,” Sturges observed as he slung a heavy bag of weapons and ammo over his shoulder. “The Institute’s fucked up.”

            S1’s big brown eyes were bitter. “The scientists think they’re the only ones who matter.”

            Preston rolled up the deathclaw meat in its scaly hide. “Well, one day the Wasteland will teach them differently. As I said, S1, you’re welcome to come with us. If not, I can give you directions to Diamond City. I hear there’s a group called the Railroad who help escaped synths.”

            The synth pondered for a moment before nodding. “I’ll come with you. I have some fruit I found that we can plant.”

            “Between you and Sturges, we’ll set ourselves up nicely,” Preston smiled. “I appreciate the help.”

            They left Concord and walked along the cracked road. Passing the Red Rocket, S1 nodded in its direction. “I live there,” she said. “But I think it’s too small for everyone.”

            “That’s why we’re going to Sanctuary,” Mama Murphy wheezed.

            Preston eyed the Red Rocket as they passed. The extra growth had been cut back, piles of dirt and compost were contained in crude wooden beds, and a water pump filled both a rough toilet and shower. “You did all that yourself?”

            “Yes,” S1 said proudly. “Z3 was in Facilities and he taught me-“

            Her eyes suddenly narrowed when she looked at Sturges. “Z3, is that you?”

            The mechanic had pulled off his helmet, so the stupefied expression on his face was obvious to all. “I’m pretty sure I ain’t no synth.”

            Preston studied Sturges. He was a tall man with well-fed muscle even during the flight from Quincy. His teeth were too perfect. If S1 claimed he was a synth…

            “I’m sorry,” S1 said softly. “You just look like my friend Z3 and you’re good at fixing things. He disappeared one day and since no one saw him around in Robotics or Synth Retention, we all figured he escaped.”

            “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t,” Preston said slowly. “I don’t care. What matters is that you’re one of us, Sturges.”

            “Maybe I am,” Sturges agreed with a shrug. “I don’t remember much of my life before that Raider clonked me on the head and the Cait Adamh found me.”

            “Is there anyone here who isn’t a synth?” Marcy asked acidly.

            “Only these two,” Mama Murphy observed calmly. “But there’ll be more. The lantern and the lightning bolt will light the way in the darkness…”

            The Minutemen of Lieutenant rank and above knew the lantern was the symbol of the Railroad. Preston was fairly certain old Colonel Hollis had an alliance of sorts with the synth-supporters, though nothing could be proven. “It doesn’t matter, Marcy,” he reminded her. “Has Sturges ever done wrong by you?”

            “No,” she admitted.

            “S1 didn’t have to help us either,” he continued. “As I said, it doesn’t matter.”

            He nodded to Sanctuary, which he could see from here. “We’ll rebuild in Sanctuary. You heard Mama Murphy.”

            “She was stoned out of her gourd,” Marcy countered weakly.

            “She’s been right one too many times to be doubted.” Preston shouldered his pack and began to march. “If the lantern and the lightning bolt are gonna light the darkness, then let’s strike the first spark here.”

            As they trudged towards Sanctuary, a watching figure lit up a cigarette in the gloom and exhaled smoke thoughtfully. Things were about to get very interesting around here.


End file.
